User blog:Ootwar/Qualis slims down
NOVEMBER 27, 2018 - NEW YORK CITY Recently, Qualis announced to start restructuring, set to end January 30, 2019. The notable reasons for the following events include low sales and streams, debt building up and competition overtaking. All of this will reportedly add profit to the point where the debt is estimated to be USD$3 million. These are announced changes: #Irish Health Company will be closed and its assets will be sold off to GSK, Takeda, Novartis and Pfizer. #Brands Tesco Homeplus, Supernetto, Säästumarket, Mini-Rimi, Tesco Metro, One Stop, Tesco Extra, Dobbies Garden Centres; will be sold off to their previous owners. #John River Media Center will be sold and merged into London School of Film, Media and Design #The Secrets franchise, known for selling sex toys and lingerie, and the stores, are set to close down. #Butterfly Thrift Stores closes down, effective January 2019. #Laserium Spaceflights will also be closed down and assets split between Oak Acres, Virgin Galactic, Airbus Group and SpaceX. #Metro Optimum Theaters Group will sell the following assets off: ##Colliseum Theaters (Italy), Optimum Cinemas Germany/UK, Xanadu Cinemas (Spain), Icarus Cinemas (Portugal and Austria), Laserium Theaters (UK) and Shooting Star Theaters will be sold and merged into AMC Cinemas Group ##Gaumont Bachmann Cinéma & théâtres will be sold and merged into Les Cinemas Gaumont Pathé ##Icarus Cinemas Taiwan will be sold and merged into Vieshow Cinemas ##Globo Cinemas, a former joint venture with Grupo Globo with cinemas across all of Latin America, will be sold and merged into Cinemark Theaters ##Icarus Cinemas Brazil will be sold to Cinepolis ##Icarus Cinemas Japan will be sold to Toho Cinemas #Icarus Cinemas will close down operations in Borneo. #LCT Inc (formerly known as Laserium Commodities Trading) will be closed down and split between Glencore, Cargill and Koch Industries #Laserium Optics will be sold off to Luxoticca #Laserium Logistics will be sold and merged into Deutsche Post DHL Group, Amazon.com, Deutsche Bahn and Maersk #Kmart Piramca, Kmart El Kadsre and Sears Piramca will close all stores #Musicstop, a musical instrument auction website founded by Laserium Holdings in 2014, will be sold and merged into eBay. #Laserium Musical Instruments and Valhalla Drum Company will be closed and assets sold to Yamaha, Pearl and Roland #Laserium Houses will close down, with its assets sold off to 3M, Saint-Gobain and various real estate companies #Laserium Consultancy Services will be sold and merged into Accenture #Tenplaye Smart Toy Company and The Bleem! Company will be sold and merged into Niantic #Havek will be sold to 3M #Laserium Powerfoods will be sold to Gamma Labs #Laserium Lucky Studios, a gambling and lottery systems company, will be sold to Kindred Group plc. The only studio excluded from the deal was the Johannesburg studio. ##The studios in Netherlands, Spain, Russia and Portugal were closed down, with assets sold to Singularity Games. ##The Johannesburg studio was merged into Oak Acres Entertainment. #Numerous companies, including Mediaset UK Television, will be closed and assets transferred into Qualis Entertainment. #Laserium Energy & Mining Group, with its Laserium Energy Centers in Moscow & Novokuznetsk and the Laserium Power Ecological and Analytical Center in Geneva, Switzerland, will be sold and merged into Glencore. #Radio channels will close down: ##Spacetoon Radio in United Arab Emirates (revived by Laserium Holdings shortly after they bought out Spacetoon) will be closed and its assets transferred to R2 Radio. ##FMC Radio channels (Pop, Rock, Gym, Hits, Love, Pride, Dance, Rap) - formerly Crystal Radio until they sold their assets to Old Dominion Media in 2017 - will be closed down and assets sold to NRJ Group and R2 Radio. ##FMC Radio France will also close down, with assets transferred to R2 Radio. ##Laserium Radio 1, Laserium Radio Canada (both founded in 2014) and Radio Pink (acquired with Pink Media in 2014) will also close down, with assets transferred to R2 Radio. #Canal 5 Sport, Glass Clock Sports, Cannon Sports will be merged into Lava Sports International. #Old Dominion Media will spin off its Spacetoon assets and close all channels outside the Middle East, the Maghreb and Indonesia. The Space Power TV block and Spacetoon Plus will also be spun off. The assetless "Spacetoon Media" company is then merged into Qualis Entertainment. #Lix FX will be merged into Oak Acres Entertainment. #Laserium Cross-Country Railways and Laserium Buses will be sold and merged into Transdev and Stagecoach Group's businesses. #Laserium Tourism will be sold off to Gray Line Worldwide, and Laserium Bus Tours in the UK, will be closed down. LaseriumTravel.com will be sold and merged into Expedia Group. #SafeHome will be sold and merged into Nest Labs. #These assets will be sold and merged into Microsoft: ##Atlas Labs, the developers of the Atlas advertising platform, and the CCG SpeakerTalker development team will become part of the Microsoft's AI and Research team. ##Their Atlas platform will be merged into Bing Ads. ##The Port series design/R&D team will become part of Microsoft's hardware division. ##I+3 Television (television-focused IT company acquired in 2014), AED Service (IT company acquired in 2014), and the development teams behind CCG Electronic Plushies, 365Cal (a calendar and time calculator system) and CCG Digital Food Maker, was split into Microsoft's AI and Research, Cloud + AI Platform and Experiences & Devices teams. ##The ExtreMotion quality certification team, CCG Interactive and Game Agent RPMs will be merged into Microsoft Studios. ##Foruma and Kato Labs will be merged into Skype Technologies. ##Libum Labs will be merged into Microsoft as a whole. #Yummzer, a food and recipes brand founded by Laserium Holdings in 2014, will be sold & merged into Buzzfeed's Tasty brand. #MotherFunny, a brand targeted at moms, will be sold and merged into Disney's Babble.com. #Lareco Music Group: ##Lareco Music Group will also sell Lareco Classics. ##Lareco Music Group will also sell Lareco Odeon which will become the Spanish operations of Universal Music Group respectively. ##Lareco Music Group will also sell Lareco Japan which will become Universal Music Japan. ##Old Dominion Music will sell Audio Agent which will be merged into Universal Music Ireland. ##Lareco Amigo will close down. #These assets will be sold off: ##''Laserium Park Rio, all of Zroad Parks' properties'' with the planned venues Wet'n'Wild Mexico City, Warner Bros Movie World Kuala Lumpur, Laserium Parks and Arcades in Brazil will be sold to a consortium consisting of Cedar Fair, Aspro Parks and Merlin Entertainments, and merged into their respective properties; ##''Ben's Beijing Park, Laserium Park Tokyo, Laserium Park Miami, Laserium Park Seoul, Laserium Park Orlando, Ben's Los Angeles Park, Laserium Park Hollywood (formerly SEGA Films Hollywood Resort); with planned Laserium Parks and Arcades in Israel, Laserium Arcades in South Korea and Laserium Parks/Arcades in New Orleans & Phoenix;'' will be sold to Universal Parks & Resorts. These will be merged into all Universal Studios amusement parks. ##''Ben's Tokyo Park and Ben's Orlando Park'' will be sold off to Walt Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products. These will be merged into Disneyland Tokyo and Disneyland. ##''Ben's New York Park'', Ben's Buffalo Park and Laserium Park Washington DC will be sold to Six Flags and merged into The Great Escape, Splashwater Kingdom and Six Flags America respectively, while Movieland Wax Museum will be closed and sold back to them as well. ##''Wildwater Kingdom'' will be closed and sold back to Cedar Park; ##''Wet n Wild Hawaii & Toronto & Houston'' (Houston park will be renamed back to SplashTown) will be sold to Premier Parks; ##''Wet'n'Wild Phoenix'' will be sold to EPR Properties, ##''Six Flags New Orleans'' will be closed and sold back to the New Orleans government, ##''Parque Warner Madrid'' will be sold to Parques Reunidos ##''Ben's El Kadsre Park and Ben's Azara Park'' will be closed and dismantled, with buildings demolished, attractions moved (existing and planned), and businesses merged into Warner MovieWorld El Kadsre, now a joint venture between Village Roadshow and Oak Acres Entertainment. ##The same will happen with Laserium Park Portugal, Laserium Park Berlin (formerly Beurenland Germany), Ben's London Park and the planned venues Wet'n'Wild Milan, Village Roadshow Studios Athens and Laserium Golf Clubs in Scotland and Ireland. They will be merged into Laserium Park London, with the unique attractions from the former parks being erected within two new areas within a couple of years. #The international brand Kiddieland (for children's cartoon channels) which was formerly owned by Apple Entertainment before being acquired by Laserium in 2016, will be closed with the assets going to Jetix. #Neb Media will sell off Neb News, Neb.com and related assets, and merge them into Buzzfeed. #Laserium Active gyms in Namibia, South Africa, Italy, Australia, Singapore and Thailand will be sold and merged into Virgin Active. The rest of the locations will be closed down except for Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon. #Laserium Arcade will sell all US locations (excluding the Los Angeles and Ontario (CA) venues) to CEC Entertainment, Inc, which owns Chuck E Cheese's. ##Laserium Arcade will also close most UK locations (Romford, Croydon, Acton, Basildon, Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Harlow, Holborn, Reading, Southampton, Tower Hill, Wood Green, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Tamworth, Wolverhampton, Brixton, Catford, Woolwich). Machines, unique attractions and related assets were moved to Laserium Park London. ##Laserium Arcade will also sell its Osaka and Tokyo locations to CA Sega Joypolis, and its Okayama location to Sega Entertainment. These will become a part of Joypolis. #Cinecorn Group Ltd/SA and PG Networks will become TVOD Ventures LLC subsidiaries. #Lareco Records will be established. #Most of the television broadcasting assets will be slimmed down to the following brands: FMC, Jetix, Luckykids and Screen. #Laserium Samoa, Laserium Asia (operating in Singapore, Japan and China) and Laserium Airlines Cargo will be sold and merged into Lufthansa Group. ##Atlantic Sun Airlines, a British airline whose destinations include Mediterranean, Canary Islands and other destinations across the Atlantic Ocean, will also be sold and merged into Lufthansa Group. ##Laserium Airlines' international operations will be sold and merged into all Star Alliance, SkyTeam and OneWorld members. ##The remaining assets will become Qualis Airlines. #A planned, unnamed workout and nutrition-focused fitness mobile app will be sold and merged into Fitbit. #lovebi.rd, a dating service, was sold and merged into Match Group. #A planned channel for "alpha males" was sold and merged into ESPNU and MTV. #Visum, the VOD DVD series, will be closing operations and assets will be merged into Qualis Entertainment's home entertainment operations and Qualis Streaming Services LLC. #Salvonic Lifestyle Group will sell off its private brands: ##Wooforo (pet food brand) will be sold to Nestle Purina PetCare ##Athlethic Works (athletic clothing brand) will be sold to Adidas ##Dreamland (bed brand) will be sold to Tempur Sealy ##Better (consumable pharmacy, health and beauty products) will be split and sold off to CVS Pharmacy and Loreal ##Ilo (home appliances) will be sold to Electrolux and Whirlpool #Three private brands will be discontinued: First Steps (for baby products), OK (for food products) and PlayHappy (for children's toys) #Laserium Shoes will be sold and merged into Adidas #OeboStore and the remaining assets of Benri will be merged into May Superstores #Afrabcom will sell off all of its operations to a consortium consisting of Spark New Zealand, Vodafone, MTN Group, MTS, Telenor, Digicel, Airtel, Axiata, NTT DoCoMo, Zain, MTN Group, Econet Wireless, Batelco, Maroc Telecom, Monaco Telecom, Africell, Altice, America Movil, Orange, Cable & Wireless, Telia Company, Singtel, Etisalat, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and Hutchison Telecom ##Afrabcom will also sell and merge Lastecom China Mobile into co-owner China Mobile ##Afrabcom will also spin off inflight internet operations into a new subsidiary Volar ##The only assets remaining are its subsidiaries Marincable and Valor, the Sinclair brand (for internet and entertainment), Kadsrecom and the new Afrabcom (result of merger between its operations in Japan and Lastecom Group (who owns Lastecom UK, also merged into the new Afrabcom)) #KCER Cable will be sold and merged into Charter Communications #MalaWorks Europe will be closed down #These food assets will be sold: ##MalaWorks Consumer Foods will sell Ben's Orange Juice, Ben's Water and Ben's Milk brands to Coca-Cola Company. They will be merged into the Hi-C, Dasani/Bonaqua and Fairlife brands respectively. ##Old Dominion Foods will sell and merge their Wintamin, OK Water and OK Milk brands into Coca-Cola's Hi-C, Dasani/Bonaqua and Fairlife brands respectively. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their OK Home-Made brand and merge it into ConAgra Foods as a whole. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their OK Chips brand and merge it into Frito-Lay. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their OK Candy company and merge it into Ferrero SpA. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their OK Tacos brand to General Mills, the owners of Old El Paso brand. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their OK Hygiene Products business to Unilever. ##Old Dominion Foods will also sell their Laserium Wines. LMix Spirit Mixers and Laserium Vodka businesses to Pernod Ricard. ##Old Dominion Foods and related companies will close all of their facilities. ##Pop! Foods, formerly owned by Quito Inc., will sell their My Food Inc. business to Frito-Lay, Ferrero SpA, Nestle, Unilever, Upfield, Pernod Ricard, Con-Agra Foods, Mondelez International and Kraft Heinz. ##Pop! Foods will also sell their So soda business to Keurig Dr Pepper. #The following channels will be shut down: Suius Canada, Cartoon Network XD Canada, CIC Canada, CIC United States, IWMS-TV, Oilohouse, ShopBen's, 10MTV Canada, TNT & Cartoon Network Canada, 10MTV 2 Canada, Suius 2, Bachmann Network, TXTelevision, Dopamine, Lava Series, BXX, Cannon Network, Comedy Network, FrighTV, Esquire Food, Everything Network, SRC Network, YTV USA, Esquire Network Docs, WEO, Puffy AmiYumi, Crocodile TV Channel, A-Channel, Tyne Tees Canada, Google Channel, Canal 5, Kai, Lasmax, Hiscanal, Teleclassic, 10MTV 2 #Icarus Cinemas China, Icon Cinemas and Park Cinemas (Russia) will merge into Bachmann Cinemas #Checkmasters UK will be closed down and assets will be sold off to Barclays. #Topitoomay Games will be merged into Lava Sports Games. #GoPizza will be sold and merged into Pizza Hut. #OK Research will sell its Murray Hill facility to Nokia Bell Labs. ##OK Research will also close locations in Glendale & Emeryville (CA) and Pittsburgh. ##OK Research's facilities in Ottawa and Melbourne will merge into Oak Acres Entertainment's offices in Toronto and Melbourne, respectively. ##OK Research will sell its Zurich facility to Microsoft Research. ##OK Research will merge with its Osaka facility into Oak Acres Entertainment. #All original brands previously owned by Old Dominion Toys & Merchandise will be sold off to Hasbro, Mattel and Spin Master. #Salvonic Lifestyle Group will spin off Springfield Mall and Cherry Hill Mall, both of which were acquired by Laserium Holdings in 2014. #LRI America's non-US operations and Laserium Railways East will be closed and assets will be sold to national railway companies. The split was said to be the largest sale in Qualis's history. #Old Dominion Foods will spin off Forts-Cola Inc. #Old Dominion Foods will merge its GoCola and Ben's Cola brands to revive Virgin Cola, under license from Virgin Group. #Laserium Studio Facilities will be closed worldwide and buildings demolished. #SpaceToon Animation College will be spun off. #Rexomodo Creative Industries and VoltageFX, both founded by Laserium Holdings in 2014, will be sold and merged into Rabbit Post-Production, which will become Rabbit Special Effects. #Lareco Music Studios, a division of Lareco Music Group responsible for handling recording studios and related facilities, founded in 2014, will be closed and the buildings will be either demolished or sold off to investors. #ODIMG Technologies will file for bankruptcy, discontinuing Eagle 4 and Mars. #Air Labs and XFire LLC will be merged into Libum Electronics. #Around 200 casinos around the world, previously owned by Laserium Casinos, will be sold off, some may shut down operations. The company will merge into Oak Acres Entertainment with remaining casinos in Tokyo, Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. #Laserium Hotels will be closed and its assets will be sold to Okura Hotels, Radisson Hotels Group, Choice Hotels, Accor Hotels, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, Taj Hotels and Hyatt. #The planned Laserium Restaurants in Israel will become Long John Silver's restaurants. #Switchover Media will sell its Italian programming brand and children's channel K2 back to Discovery Inc. #Cinecorn USA, Spacetoon City, B Channel and K2 USA will shut down operations. #Neb Media will file for bankruptcy. Their assets will be sold to Vox Media, with Hyper+ merging into Polygon. #The Checkmasters Company will file for bankruptcy, selling off its assets to Kadsre Bank Group. #EME Special Vehicles will be split and sold off to China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and Airbus Group. #Marincable will be sold and merged into Orange Marine, owned by Orange SA. #Old Dominion Music will file for bankrputcy with its assets spun off to Salvonic Lifestyle Group. #InquisiCharta nv will be spun off. #Awarks Ctupo, Stevens Hills Miller and JP Kids will be merged to form Qualis Family Entertainment. #Salvonic Lifestyle Group will merge into Old Dominion Media. #Nu Comics will become Laserium Comics. #Echo Books and Infinity Media are set to file for bankruptcy around February 2019. #The Nickelodeon Magazine/My MTV (formerly owned by Viacom Newspapers), Ben's Magazine (formerly owned by MalaWorks Publishing) and Amalgam Magazine (formerly owned by Amalgam, Inc) will be discontinued, with the final issues coming out in February 2019. #Destiny Publications will be spun off. #R2 Radio is set to file for bankruptcy in June 2019. #Qualis will be delisted from Switzerland, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, leading up to a closedown of joint head offices in Zürich, London, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. #GoAnimate Games will close down with assets sold to Singularity Games. #MyTV Music will be closed and merged into FMC. #CER Two Digital Networks, KB Broadcasting Digital Channels and Levibross Digital will be closed. #Worldkids, Worldtoons and Worldtoons UK & Ireland will close down. #Play TV, Vision, TV Classic, SCET, Ozone, Auction2, T&C Origin and Gcc will be closed down, while Nightlife, SM&E Pride, Fashionista, Café/DSinR and Style will become part of Otherkind (mostly) and some parts of GoTV. #DisNick, Spacetoon USA and Spacetoon 2 will close down with assets going to Jetix. #Ginx TV will be spun off. #The Malachi Music, Dancefloor Latin America and GBC Music will be merged into FMC Networks. #Google Media will close down. #Nostalgic TV Partners, BKN AG, SM&E Networks and Zeebo Entertainment LLC will merge into Old Dominion Media. #Globalshi will be spun off. #Easter Island Records and Lareco Music Group will merge into Lareco Records. #Cinenetwork will become Salovaara & Kukkonen Group offices in Jetania and Kuboia. #The FashionTV block on Fashionista (the block operated as a joint venture between Michel Adam Lisowski and SM&E Networks) will be shut down. #Meteo will shut down with assets being sold to The Weather Company, owned by IBM. #PBS & Viacom Productions, Toonzai Entertainment, ManRay Pictures, Kigor, Avrel Films, Rubin Communications, SLN! DVD (founded in 2011), SLN! Films, SLN! Pictures and KidsCo Media merged into Qualis Entertainment. More updates will be coming soon. Category:Blog posts